A company that makes smartphone-controlled door locks for hotels has announced its first home door lock system, going by the rather cringeworthy name Okidokeys.

Once fitted, you’ll be able to unlock your front door from your iPhone (or Android handset) via Bluetooth. The locks are also compatible with RFID chips, allowing you to open them with a keycard or wristband in case your phone battery goes flat. As you’d expect from a hi-tech lock, you can also manage access and accounts online …

For example, you can create an account for a cleaner which restricts access to certain days or hours, and you can also open the lock remotely if someone is locked out.

The range of locks starts at $179, with pre-orders available later this month for delivery in the spring. It will be competing with a growing range of smartphone-controlled locks this year, including the August, available for pre-order now at $199, also for shipping in the Spring.

Apparently an English phrase … here in the UK, we would say ‘heating up’ to describe the literal process, but usually ‘hotting up’ when using the term figuratively, as in a new product category turning into a hot one.

I’m sorry but I find all of this stuff to be so dumb. I love my phone, but I don’t need EVERYTHING to link to it. I propose a race, I will use my key e and the inventor of this can pull out their phone, open the app, log in, and unlock the door and we will see who is home first. Will the next version check me in on Facebook and post to my friends I am home???

I am going to stick this in the same category as the Bluetooth fishing rod that was in popular science a few months back and the egg tray on ThinkGeek that reports the egg count reaming in your fridge to your phone.

People love to talk about going green and then stick 4 AA batteries in their front door locks.

I probably sounded more bitter that I really am. I just see this movement to digitize everything when the tried and trusted mechanical versions are super proven and reliable and didn’t really need to be “improved”.

We go through major efforts to get complicated electronics to mimic simple mechanical systems and in many cases its a wasted effort with minimal or no benefit. IE an electronic egg carton.

Not trying to make waves or be a web troll that destroys the enjoyment of open web forums. If it appeals to you than by all means buy it, but I will stick to my $30 Schlage and my $0.99 key until it proves to be lacking.

I haven’t investigated this particular one, but as someone who has been looking for a replacement door-lock like this for over a year now I have to mention that the one aspect they all have so far (probably this one too), is that the keys are stored on a server “somewhere in the US.” Most of these new lock companies don’t advertise this fact and hide it in the fine print of the product description.

People should be aware that pretty much any government official or anyone involved in the law enforcement business in the USA can easily request and be given access to the keys to such a lock. Until they make one of these things that doesn’t give the backdoor access and is an entirely local solution, I’m not buying.